Let the cost-cutting begin. Like almost every municipality in California, Costa Mesa has been trying to control ever-rising expenses.

That effort stalled in 2011 after the City Council enacted a sweeping privatization program. The Costa Mesa City Employees Association, the union for most city staff, sued, contending the privatization initiative was barred by state law. Orange County Superior Court Judge Tam Namoto Schumann granted an injunction against the city, preventing layoffs of 213 city employees. Appeals by the city ended last November when the California Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

The same month, city voters also rejected Measure V, which would have changed Costa Mesa from a general law city to a charter city, which would have given the council more leeway on privatization.

The status quo changed last Friday. A new judge on the case, Luis A. Rodriguez, lifted the injunction against privatization. The action potentially allows "outsourcing some functions like street sweeping," the Register reported. "City leaders still want to privatize street sweeping, park maintenance and jail operations to save more than $1 million annually."

"Our hope now is that we will be working with the association," Mayor Jim Righeimer told us. "We are going to say, 'We are still looking to outsource. We are going to move people around. Nobody will lose a job. We would like to go with attrition,'" meaning jobs would be privatized as current city employees retire or leave.

He added that there's nothing about the nature of many city jobs that requires they be done by staff who receive substantial salaries, five weeks off a year and generous pensions guaranteed by the taxpayers. "Park maintenance in the private sector is called landscaping. We're looking at hiring private companies to do it."

He said passage of Measure V would have made the privatization task easier. But the union outspent Measure V proponents by more than seven-to-one. However, Mr. Righeimer said he hopes a new charter measure will be put on the June 2014 ballot. A major talking point against Measure V was that it was crafted by the council, with minimal resident input.

The new measure, Mr. Righeimer said, would be entirely written by an outside committee of citizens. "I don't need to be in the room," he said. Within 60 days the council will hold a study session on how to set up the independent committee for the new charter measure.

Assuming the charter passes in 2014, he added, "Between now and then we still have to save money." We encourage the association to cooperate in privatizing the jobs of those who leave. Doing so is the wave of the future across a state where municipal budgets increasingly have dried up.

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